Author: hankkalet

Bob Menendez, as The Opinion Mill points out, voted against the war and has remained against the war ever since.

Jim Tester was critical of the war and appears to have defeated Conrad Burns in Montana.

Sheldon Whitehouse opposed the war and while his opponent, the incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee, is rather independent, that big fat R on his chest and the party’s responsibility for the war was the “decider” here.

I could go on, but it might be better to just read this from John Nichols.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

First, it was weapons of mass destruction.

Then, it was to fight terrorism.

Then, it was to foster democracy.

Then, it was human rights.

Then, it was terrorism again.

And now, what?? What? Oil? It couldn’t be.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Fifteen was the magic number and it appears the Democrats are there.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

No surprises in South Brunswick. The Democrats won with a huge margin and the Republicans continued their descent into complete irrelevancy. (The lone surprise was the number of write-ins — more than a thousand, about one in nine votes cast.)

The GOP is likely to cast blame around with the targets likely to be everything from the Middlesex County Democratic machine (legitimate target) to the local Democrats’ money advantage (again, legitimate) to the South Brunswick Post (if only we had the kind of influence the GOP thinks we do).

One target likely to escape blame, however, will be their party’s leadership. The fact is, the party has failed its faithful, running a cast of mediocre candidates for years, candidates who have offered little in the way of vision and little to convince local voters that they should be elected to replace the incumbents.

If money was the only issue, if the party was running strong candidates or offering a compelling sense of where the township should be heading, it wouldn’t be losing by two-to-one margins, as it did this year.

Think about this: There was enough disenchantment with the incumbent mayor that a write-in camapaign against him managed to garner more than a thousand votes — an amazing feat given that writing in a candidate is not the easiest of processes.

If the GOP wants to be relevant again, it needs to find fresh faces and new leadership.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Finally getting a chance to post and it looks like the Dems may take the House. The key issue, of course, was Iraq — an issue on which the administration refuses to take off its rose-colored glasses. From the Times:

The election to a large extent became a national referendum on President Bush and the war in Iraq, according to exit polls.

Sixty percent of voters interviewed as they left the polls today said they opposed the war in Iraq, and 40 percent said their vote was a vote against Mr. Bush. In addition, a significant number of voters said corruption was a crucial issue in their decision, in a year in which Republicans have struggled with scandal in their ranks.

Independent voters, a closely watched group in a polarized country, broke heavily for Democrats over Republicans, the exit polls showed.

Here in New Jersey, the House seats went to the incumbents, as did the Senate seat — with Bob Menendez winning a particularly nasty race.

Again, the issue was Iraq.

President Bush never took an active role in the race but remained a polarizing figure who might have affected the outcome. Exit polls showed 86 percent of Menendez voters disapproved of the president’s performance; 76 percent of Kean voters said they strongly approved the way the president handled his job.

The results were similar on the issue of Iraq: 81 percent of Kean voters strongly approved of the war in Iraq, 75 percent of Menendez voters disagreed.

Kean had tried to distance himself from the administration, calling for the outset of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and arguing that White House had made mistakes. He even avoided describing himself as a Republican, but the link was tough to overcome.

“It comes down to this serious headwind this campaign was facing: anti-Bush; anti-war; anti-Iraq,” said Tom Wilson, chairman of the state GOP. “The Democrats nationalized their message. We practiced the idiom that all politics is local. We made it Tom Kean versus Bob Menendez.”

That, obviously, was not enough as New Jersey voters not only backed Sen. Menendez, but gave him a rather healthy margin of victory, as well.

There remains a possiblity — probably even money — that the Democrats will take both houses, but no one should have any illusions about what that will mean. A notoriously timid party, the Democrats might opt for some investigations and may push some needed legislation, but the president still holds the cards. He is likely to veto the main Democratic planks while refusing to back down on Iraq. That means that disaster will continue at least until he retires and we have a chance to elect someone with a modicum of respect for the international community and the U.S. Constitution.

That said, the Democrats have put themselves back in the game.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick